How to Make Business Decisions Without the Guesswork

How accurate facilities management data can cut risk and increase business growth.

No matter what sector you work in, having accurate insights into the mechanics of your organisation provides a powerful advantage for your management team. The collection, integration, analysis, and presentation of live facilities management data into insightful and actionable business information plays a critical role in effective decision-making by enabling executive teams to work with nothing but the cold, hard facts. Having a transparent view of business activity is a clear way of taking the risk out of decision making .

In the FM sector where the workforce is generally large and dispersed, the ability to see the activities and effectiveness of each contract, team, shift and member of staff is extremely valuable, particularly when issues arise. Giving management an overview of the situation, understanding where the gaps are or where the service may be failing, provides intelligence that can save a failing contract. Workforce management software is a crucial tool in providing the facilities management analytics needed to make rapid changes to avert or fix a crisis before it becomes apparent to the client.

The prospect of having live facilities management analytics to work with is growing in acceptance and importance within the FM sector. Organisations are realising that having this powerful information at their fingertips is helping them streamline their operations whilst providing robust, quality service to their customers.

A Forbes article discussing a survey from Deloitte, notes that “49% of respondents said analytics helps them make better decisions, 16% say that it better enables key strategic initiatives, and 10% say it helps them improve relationships with both customers and business partners.”

What is the purpose of business intelligence?

Gathering data to better understand how a business is operating — to be able to drill down into the data  — is the lifeblood of any effective business growth strategy. Weaknesses and inefficiencies are highlighted to management teams, enabling the right changes to be made. Proactivity becomes possible with the benefit of foresight that facilities management data provides.

Access to accurate business data provides many advantages for an organisation. Business intelligence helps in:

Problem solving

Management can pinpoint what went wrong, tracking and reviewing data collected from a workforce management software solution to uncover performance breakdown, enabling better understanding of each part of a process that may have failed. The data can help decipher which areas of a job are not performing as they should, highlighting the steps that need to be fixed.

Understanding performance

By collecting and reviewing data from all parts of the FM business, workforce management software solutions show management teams exactly what is happening throughout the organisation. Understanding levels of performance is key. Not understanding how well the business, its departments, or its employees are performing, renders an organisation blind and it will continue to waste money on areas that are not providing sufficient ROI.

Accelerating decision making

Having accurate organisational data helps executive teams understand and improve business processes in order to reduce wasted money and time. Management can make informed decisions to protect the bottom line when they can clearly see where problems are occurring or where process is ineffective.

Gaining competitive advantage

FM service providers of any size who harness business data become stronger contenders when it comes to wining new business. Through tracking and evaluating performance and effectiveness, data collected by workforce management solutions can be shared with clients to provide proof of service delivery. Promoting your business’s investment in a solution that provides your management with live organisational data, on which your decisions on their contract will be made, provides assurance for the potential client that you have a robust management process in place. They can rest assured you will be providing a reliable service and they won’t be let down.